OAN’s Abril Elfi
2:21 PM – Thursday, January 18, 2024
A Department of Justice report into the shooting at Robb Elementary in 2022 has revealed “cascading failures of leadership” during the massacre.
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On Thursday morning, the report was released describing “cascading failures of leadership” during the attack at the school in Uvalde, Texas and an “unprecedented” level of misinformation in its aftermath.
The report found that a review team that was investigating the fatal shooting “identified several critical failures and other breakdowns prior to, during, and after the Robb Elementary School response.”
According to the report, there had been insufficient planning and students and teachers did not have established active-shooter protocols.
On May 24th, 2022, an 18-year-old gunman entered Robb Elementary School and killed 19 students and two teachers before police broke through the door and took the gunman’s life. It took the responding state and local police officers about seventy-seven minutes to enter the classroom and take out the gunman.
The police reaction was scrutinized almost immediately, and a string of falsehoods made by officials in the wake of the shooting exacerbated resentment in the close-knit community.
After first applauding the bravery of first responders, state and local officials, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw, referred to their performance as an “abject failure.”
“The extent of misinformation, misguided and misleading narratives, leaks, and lack of communication about what happened on May 24th is unprecedented and has had an extensive, negative impact on the mental health and recovery of the family members and other victims, as well as the entire community of Uvalde,” the Justice Department report said.
During a press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland referred to the officer’s response during the shooting as a “failure that should not have happened.”
“As I told families and survivors last night, the department’s review concluded that a series of major failures — failures and leadership in tactics and communications, in training and then preparedness were made by law enforcement leaders and others responding to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary,” Garland said. “As a result, 33 students and three of their teachers, many of whom had been shot, were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour as law enforcement officials remain outside.”
Following the tragic event, the Justice Department launched a “Critical Incident Review” and Garland had commissioned nine law enforcement experts to review the evidence and conduct interviews to craft a “complete incident reconstruction.”
This resulted in a 575 page report about failures in the police response, lack of preparation for an active shooter and misinformation of the aftermath of the shooting.
The report also found that the school and the district were “unprepared” and that most officers “lacked specialized, advanced training and preparation to handle such situations” and the school district had cultivated “a culture of complacency regarding locked-door policies.”
“[Some] families received incorrect information suggesting their family members had survived when they had not,” the report noted. “And others were notified of the deaths of their family members by personnel untrained in delivering such news.”
It is also written that the most “significant failure” was the officers who retreated from the classroom, and treated the gunman as a barricade subject.
“The most significant failure was that responding officers should have immediately recognized the incident as an active shooter situation, using the resources and equipment that were sufficient to push forward immediately and continuously toward the threat until entry was made into classrooms 111/112 and the threat was eliminated,” according to the report.
Even after Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo arrived, the report identified him as the de-facto on-scene commander.
After the initial failure to pursue and confront the shooter, communication breakdowns exacerbated the confusion on-scene.
According to the report, Arredondo “lacked a radio,” having thrown away his radios upon arrival on the grounds that he didn’t need them.
“Leadership demonstrated no urgency for establishing a command and control structure, which led to challenges related to information sharing, lack of situational statuses, and limited-to-no direction for personnel in the hallway or on the perimeter,” the report found. “Counter to well-established active-shooter training methods, Arredondo directed officers intending to gain entry into the classrooms to stop.”
President Joe Biden responded to the report calling on Congress to pass “common sense” gun laws, including background checks, a national federal law and a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines.
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